


Changes up her repertoire

by ToxicPineapple



Series: Femslash February 2020 [28]
Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: ((There are only three chapters out anyway what would be the point)), (But you don't have to read it to understand), (Technically in the same universe as my fic Routine), (That's the prompt), (Which I'll update someday), Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Bars, Conversations, F/F, Femslash February, First Meeting, Kaede is babey and that's on period, Non-Hope's Peak AU, Pre-Friendship, Pre-Relationship, Slice of Life AU, dance, mentions of alcohol use, piano playing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:26:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22770205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToxicPineapple/pseuds/ToxicPineapple
Summary: There is a particular group of young women. Kaede looks forward to it every time they’re scheduled to come. Not because of any of the loud personalities, though, but rather because--In every friend group, Kaede imagines that there will be one person who attends an event or a social function because they were peer pressured into it. Peer pressure is sucky but in small amounts, and as it pertains to breaking people out of their shells, Kaede doesn’t think it’s always so bad. This is one of those instances where it can be acceptable. Her best friend back in high school, Shuichi? He was like that. Never really wanted to go out anywhere.--of this one woman in the group. Kaede doesn’t know her name, but she’d like to. The woman has brown hair, long brown hair, but what’s really striking about her are her eyes. Wide and a deep, fiery red. Crimson coloured, and intense. The times when they’ve been locked on Kaede, she’s essentially frozen in place under the weight of them. They’re absolutely stunning, of course, but intimidating too.---Kaede plays the piano at a bar. It's dull, for the most part, but there is one woman who comes every two weeks who she wants to see dance.
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede/Harukawa Maki
Series: Femslash February 2020 [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616182
Comments: 8
Kudos: 33





	Changes up her repertoire

**Author's Note:**

> written for femslash february day twenty eight! the prompt is "dance"

Truthfully, there are a lot of places where Kaede would be happy to play the piano as her career. (It’s remarkable that she’s getting paid to play the piano to begin with, considering that she’s always considered it to be an unproductive use of her time; her passion for sure, but not anything even borderline academic. When she was growing up, it was always regarded as her default setting.  _ Where’s Kaede at? She’s playing the piano right now. Go figure. _ Not necessarily “career material”, so to speak.) And it would be a lie to say that she’s particularly unhappy with her current place of work.

But when she first started looking into venues, she had something a bit more refined at the front of her mind than a bar. Being a full-time musician, though, Kaede quickly learned that she can’t really afford to be picky. Unless she wanted to get a second job flipping burgers. Initially she wasn’t playing anywhere full-time, just taking gigs at bars and restaurants and the occasional community center as she could get them, but there’s a bar near her house where business is always booming, and the owner, Tsumugi, offered her a permanent position, and she wasn’t really in the position to say no.

That being said: She’d much rather be playing in some kind of performance hall. Or anywhere that’s likely to have people with any kind of music knowledge. She’d even settle for pretentious rich people. Really, Kaede’s just adverse to dealing with people who are under the influence. (A bar is a pretty lousy place to spend her time, that in mind, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.) Drunk people are just… Kaede doesn’t like dealing with them, is all. And she didn’t have to often while she was growing up, so she’s not even used to it.

Well, okay. After working at this bar for several months, she’s gotten  _ somewhat  _ used to it, but it’s still not pleasant. Some drunk people are just sullen and quiet, which is absolutely fair. Preferable even, because Kaede has made it her personal mission to cheer those people up when they arrive. But others are loud and angry, or else nonsensical. Thoughtless. Uninhibited. Things that Kaede would be okay with from people who are sober, but from people who are drunk? Yeesh! Things like alcohol take away your common sense!

And then she gets random-ass people draping themselves over her piano and touching her hair, asking if she dyed it (she didn’t) and what kind of shampoo she uses (honeysuckle, but that’s not really any of their business) and if she’s willing to go on a date with them (she isn’t) and then Mondo, one of Tsumugi’s employees, has to come over and pry them off, and it’s just, it’s not ideal, that’s all. Things like that would never happen in a concert hall, that’s for sure!

There are upsides, though. Fridays and Saturdays are the busiest days of the week, but Fridays especially, and most remarkably that’s when a lot of teenagers and young adults come into the bar. At least, Kaede thinks that they’re teenagers. They all have IDs that list them as over twenty, and Tsumugi buys it with a shrug of her shoulders, but Kaede isn’t sure if it’s really legal to let them drink here. Still, it’s business, so perhaps that’s why Tsumugi brushes it off.

It might just be because Kaede is a young adult herself, but she likes it bes when the younger people come in. They usually come in for girl’s nights, or chilling with the lads, and so she’ll pull out her high-energy piano pieces, and often times, the people who come in will start dancing.

There is a particular group of young women, around Kaede’s age, perhaps a year or two younger but nothing significant, considering that Kaede is twenty five, who come in every two weeks. She recognises the group because they are such frequent customers, but also because there are a few loud personalities among them. (Namely a blonde girl with a dirty mouth who has volume control issues, but there are a few others.) Kaede looks forward to it every time they’re scheduled to come. Not because of any of the loud personalities, though, but rather because--

In every friend group, Kaede imagines that there will be one person who attends an event or a social function because they were peer pressured into it. Peer pressure is sucky but in small amounts, and as it pertains to breaking people out of their shells, Kaede doesn’t think it’s always so bad. This is one of those instances where it can be acceptable. Her best friend back in high school, Shuichi? He was like that. Never really wanted to go out anywhere. Of course, he was never very… assertive, about the things that he didn’t want to do. It was more like, implied that he didn’t want to do them. Shuichi put up with a lot of bullshit from them, in retrospect.

\--of this one woman in the group. Kaede doesn’t know her name, but she’d like to. The woman has brown hair, long brown hair, but what’s really striking about her are her eyes. Wide and a deep, fiery red. Crimson coloured, and intense. The times when they’ve been locked on Kaede, she’s essentially frozen in place under the weight of them. They’re absolutely stunning, of course, but intimidating too.

Most of the other woman who come with that group will dance to her songs, but never the brown-haired woman. She usually just sits at the bar with a glass of clear liquid and watches with a skeptical expression on her face. Occasionally a shadow of a smile. But the way she moves, it’s clear she would be an excellent dancer. Her steps are light and she maneuvers her way around the bar with ease. She’s strong too; one time her blonde friend got way drunk and she wordlessly hoisted the woman over onto her shoulder and walked right out. Still maintaining that uninhibited grace. She moves like water.

And Kaede desperately wants to see her dance.

She changes up her repertoire a lot for the Fridays when those women come in, hoping that the woman with the red eyes will hear a song she likes and dance a long to it. Thus far Kaede has been majorly unsuccessful, but it truly isn’t for lack of trying. She’s been exhausting her list of good dance songs ever since she set herself the arbitrary goal of making that woman dance. At least it gives her something to look forward to aside from all the drunk people. (Unideal, the lot of them.)

One Friday, though, the group of women shows up, minus their friend with the red eyes. Kaede half wants to ask them where she is, but she feels like it would be a weird question when she’s never actually spoken to any of them before, so she doesn’t. She just goes through her typical set and calls it a day.

Later in the week, though, as Kaede is playing one of her favourite songs, a lament (and a tune she usually plays on Wednesday evenings, which are as slow and sad as Wednesdays themselves) she feels a hand rest on her shoulder and jumps, nearly hitting a wrong key. Thankfully, by now, this song is kind of muscle memory to her, so she manages to turn her head around without ceasing her playing.

Only to practically fall of the bench when she meets a pair of familiar red eyes.

They aren’t… unhappy, per se, so much as they are accusatory. And as damn heavy as they always are. Kaede’s throat is suddenly extremely dry, because the woman is standing closer to her than she ever has, and her brow is furrowed, like there’s something she can’t figure out. Her eyes are actually two toned; the outer edge of her irises is the clear, paler red that Kaede’s always seen, but in the center her eyes are a deeper scarlet. Swirling with intensity. Yikes. And Kaede is gay as hell. Her heart is pounding way too hard.

“Uhm--” Kaede begins to say.

“You don’t really cycle through a wide variety of music, do you?” The woman asks. Kaede blinks.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I mean, you have a set. You play a certain bunch of songs.” She pauses, and then adds, “Except on Fridays.”

What is she talking about? Kaede takes a minute to process the woman’s words. Sure, at work, Kaede has a list of songs that she’ll go through on a typical night. She doesn’t need a lot of variety because aside from Saturdays and Fridays, the people in the bar won’t be paying much attention to her music. And even  _ on  _ Fridays and Saturdays, so long as she plays something upbeat and fun, nobody cares. She only switches things up for… well, for the woman standing before her. But that would be a weird admission, wouldn’t it? “Ahaha, I’m surprised you’ve noticed. I thought you only came in every other week.”

“And it’s not weird that you’ve noticed me?” asks the woman, quirking a brow. Kaede has nothing to say to that. The corner of the woman’s lip twitches. “I just thought it was strange that you had so many different songs to play every week. I figured you’d run out eventually. I popped in on a couple different days to see. But it seems like you’ve been playing the same set of songs on other days.”

“Y-Yeah,” Kaede smiles shakily. She feels a bit embarrassed to have been noticed. The song draws to the close and so she pulls her fingers away from the keys, stretching them out to give herself time to think up an appropriate response to the woman before her. What would even be right to say? She frowns.

“Don’t look embarrassed,” huffs the woman. “You’re just a talented player, that’s why I was even thinking about it.” After a pause, she says, “Whatever. Sorry for bothering you. You can get back to--”

“Wait!” Without thinking, Kaede reaches out to grab her arm. The woman raises both of her eyebrows this time, but stops regardless. “Uhm-- what’s… what’s your name?”

Another beat is skipped. “Maki,” she replies. “And you’re Kaede?” She nods towards the nametag pinned to Kaede’s shirt. (Kaede smiles.) “Why’d you have my schedule committed to memory? Do you pay that level of attention to all regulars?”

In lieu of an actual answer, Kaede asks, “Do you ever dance, Maki?”

“Dance? I…” Maki frowns at her. “Not around my friends.”

“Are your friends here?” Kaede smiles, and Maki narrows her eyes, opening her mouth to say something. “Don’t think too hard about it, okay? I’ll explain more later, just… let me play something more fun, okay?” And before Maki can give her a real answer, Kaede turns back to the keys, setting on the first, most high spirited song she can think of. The energy in the bar seems to shift, from sleepy and sad, to curious, and then a bit brighter. Kaede can hear wisps of conversation from the bar behind her.

  
Most remarkably, when she glances over her shoulder, she meets Maki’s eyes, and can’t help but smile, because Maki is dancing.

**Author's Note:**

> no quirky a/n today, i am tired.
> 
> love these two. it's february 17th. i had a hard time figuring out what to do for this one. i'm not really proud of it. idk.
> 
> yea
> 
> edit: hi it's the 26th i just updated Routine and kaede is officially there so yeah fun facts i'm not posting this until friday but hey. we gotta vibe ya know


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